The Trancer

by Reki Kawahara

  “That’s right…”

  He paused, looking back at the driver’s seat. “M-Ms. Komura, why were you in front of my house in the first place?”

  Her answer caught him by surprise. “This isn’t the first time I’ve come here. When you and Accelerator are out on missions, either my brother or I are generally here keeping watch, to make sure that your sister isn’t attacked by Ruby Eyes.”

  “Ah…”

  Minoru was at a loss for words. He hadn’t had the slightest idea that this was going on.

  Of course, the possibility of an attack on Norie was a worry that was always on his mind. Ever since Biter had raided his house, Minoru had carefully avoided activating his protective shell, so the chances of a Ruby Eye detecting him and finding his home should be very low. Still, if he were on a mission fighting against one and it discovered his identity, it wasn’t impossible that the enemy might track down his address…

  But he hadn’t expected the SFD to go so far as to station a guard at his house. For one thing, its location in the Sakura district of Saitama wasn’t exactly close by the SFD’s headquarters in Shinjuku. Which meant that Minoru’s reluctance to move to headquarters had directly affected Refractor. “I didn’t know that… I’m sorry to have caused you so much trouble.”

  The quiet apology had scarcely left his lips before he heard her response. “It’s all right. If a Ruby Eye did attack this place, they would definitely be a member of the Syndicate. If we captured them, we could get a lot of information out of them.”

  Hearing such frightening words spoken in a soft, deadpan voice almost made the corners of Minoru’s lips twitch, but he quickly bowed his head again. “Still, that doesn’t change the fact that I’m grateful for what you’ve been doing. Thank you very much.”

  Minoru again moved to open the door of the car, but at that moment, he heard a low rumbling noise from the direction of the driver’s seat. The starter motor had already been turned on a while ago, which meant… Could that noise have come from Refractor’s stomach?

  Turning back toward her timidly, Minoru looked at the seemingly empty driver’s seat, wondering whether he should say anything. Finally, he gathered his courage and spoke.

  “U-um… You’ve probably been sitting here for most of the day, so…you must be hungry, right…? Would… Would you like to come in and have dinner with us? Norie said she was making hand-rolled sushi for tonight, so it shouldn’t be a problem if we have one more person…”

  Minoru had only been trying to offer a show of gratitude, but when there was no immediate response, he realized the implications of what he’d said. Naturally, not being a member of the SFD, Norie had no knowledge of Third Eyes and their abilities. In order to sit at the table and eat dinner together, Refractor would have to deactivate her ability and become visible.

  But like Yumiko had told him before, Third Eyes’ abilities were born of the pain and trauma the host had endured…so Refractor’s strong power of invisibility, which she seemed to keep activated constantly, meant that she probably had some kind of fear associated with being seen by other people.

  And I just stupidly asked her if she wanted to eat dinner together like it was no big deal…

  But as he was opening his mouth to apologize, an unexpected question came from the direction of the driver’s seat.

  “Hand-rolled sushi… Does that mean there’ll be layered omelets?”

  What? Minoru thought, but he reflexively answered, “Um, y-yes…they’re Norie’s favorite, so…”

  “And avocado and tuna rolls?”

  “Y-yes, since those are my favorite…”

  There was silence for a few seconds, and then…

  “Then I suppose I’ll accept your offer.” The key turned back to the left, and the engine fell silent, leaving only the faint sound of the rain washing over them like white noise. Then, to Minoru’s amazement, a petite young woman appeared in the driver’s seat out of thin air.

  As he watched, dumbfounded, he suppressed a single bemused thought:

  Was that seriously a good enough reason to show yourself?

  He had no time to guess at just how deep the damage he’d received was.

  The sword raised before him flipped around with a clink. The edge that he’d frozen over with ice faced away, revealing the still-sharp blade on the other side as it came down toward him. In this situation—especially with the large gash along the right side of his torso—it was impossible for him to dodge the next attack.

  Hoping to at least neutralize Divider’s ability, Mikawa blew sharply with the air that remained in his lungs. As the third slash came toward him, the water in the air again froze into ice around the blade. However, with his perception of time currently accelerated, the growth rate of the ice seemed terribly slow. He had to ice that blade into a blunt weapon before it reached his body, or—

  I’m going to lose.

  Even though it’s raining.

  Even though I’m surrounded by all this water.

  Mikawa rarely felt intense emotions about anything, but right now, a strange fire was welling up in his chest. It was a sensation he’d felt only once before, in the distant past.

  It was a cold, rainy day like this, too. All the adults were moping around in raincoats… None of them made any attempt to look at us.

  That’s why nobody could blame us for sneaking into that place. We avoided the eyes of the men steering the forklifts, crept across that huge lot, opened that wide metal door, and went inside. In that big, dark place, there were boxes everywhere, stacked up to the ceiling. Every time we breathed, the insides of our noses stung.

  My friend and I headed deeper into the maze of boxes, undetected by anyone. It was like we’d been teleported into the future, surrounded by incredible new technology.

  We didn’t know.

  When water freezes, its volume expands. We didn’t know that such a trivial phenomenon could cause something so terrible.

  “……!!”

  The floodgates of his memories had started to open, but Mikawa did his best to freeze them shut. As if in response to his powerful feelings, the sphere embedded over his left lung pulsed intensely.

  As air flowed from his tightly pursed lips, he saw that it was glittering like diamond dust. It flooded fiercely over the blade that was rushing toward him, freezing it whiter and whiter.

  Whack! The strike came crashing down on Mikawa’s right shoulder. A shock of pain like a silver spark shot through his brain as the attack smashed into his clavicle. But the sharp cut that he had expected to divide his body in two didn’t seem to have occurred.

  Fighting against the searing pain, Mikawa struggled to refill his lungs with a bit of air and blow it back toward his opponent’s face. Divider quickly defended himself by throwing up his left hand, which was instantly coated in a thin membrane of ice.

  Seizing this chance, Mikawa twisted his body to the side and used his left foot to kick at the surface of the flagstones with all his might. At the same time, he blew cold air toward the stones a little ways ahead of him, sliding with his left foot along the newly formed ice like a skater.

  As the air in his lungs ran out, he whirled back around. Now about fifteen meters away, he saw that Divider was breaking the ice off his hand. Then, grasping his long sword with both hands once more, the Jet Eye charged forward, a glint of killing intent in his decidedly foreign-colored eyes.

  At this point, the deep gash from Mikawa’s abdomen to his right shoulder finally made itself known with a flood of white-hot pain and a frightening amount of blood that soaked straight through his jacket, dyeing it black.

  Struggling to bear the pain, Mikawa focused on the wound and blew hard.

  Kshh… The noise rippled through his body as the streaming blood froze into white ice. The mixture of heat and harsh cold doubled the agony, sending fresh sparks of pain before his eyes.

  He could still breathe well enough, so it seemed that the wound hadn’t reached his lungs, but it was prob
ably safe to say that at least two or three of his ribs were broken. To continue to fight in this condition would be extremely difficult. Unfortunately, even fleeing would be risky at this point.

  Watching Divider slice through the ice toward him at a rapid pace, Mikawa made a snap decision. He could no longer afford to hold back his power.

  The second doctrine of the Syndicate: Do not reveal all your power to the enemy.

  The power source of Third Eye abilities is the inner pain of the host. In other words, by looking at a Third Eye host’s abilities, one could form a conjecture about that person’s suffering. One of the black ones had a terrifying deduction-based ability on their side, so once they knew about a red power, they could determine the source of that person’s trauma with astounding accuracy.

  Of course, in addition to being the source of their power, a Third Eye’s inner pain is also their greatest weak point. The black ones had defeated many of Mikawa’s comrades by mercilessly targeting that weakness. Once they learned that his power was separating water into hydrogen and oxygen, Igniter, one of Liquidizer’s favorite recruits into the Syndicate, had been captured by the Jet Eyes without taking a single one of them down with him in the explosion he caused in a theme park pool.

  So far, the only power Mikawa had shown the black ones was turning water into ice. Thus, they had no way of figuring out the trauma and fear that nested deep in his heart.

  The pain in Mikawa’s heart wasn’t just directed toward ice.

  Freezing, melting, evaporating, and solidifying again. Mikawa loved these transitions, and feared them deeply.

  If he showed them another one of his powers, they would have new material with which to try and dig up his traumatic past. And then, while he wanted to believe this was impossible, they might even use that information to try and track her down, as deeply hidden in the city as she may be.

  But in this situation, he no longer had the luxury of hiding his powers. The last time things had gotten dangerous, Liquidizer had been there to come to his rescue, but that was only because he’d still been in training. Now that he was independent, if she found out he was captured or even killed, she would scarcely even spare him a sigh.

  As Mikawa watched the furiously charging swordsman, a thought flashed into his mind.

  Divider…I wonder what the source of your suffering is…? Why do you need to cut things up to be satisfied?

  Fighting to ignore the pain, Mikawa filled his lungs with air, but instead of pursing his lips and blowing a thin stream of air, he exhaled in a huge huff. Unlike the sparkling blue of his previous breaths, this one was a thick white.

  The white breath diffused outward into the air. And then—whump! A sound like the impact of a heavy blanket echoed through the graveyard.

  That was the sound of all the water in front of Mikawa being transformed instantly into water vapor—in other words, steam.

  Mikawa’s ability to manipulate the phases of water didn’t just go in one direction. With a long, thin breath, he could transform steam into water and water into ice, both resulting in a lower temperature. But with a big, thick huff, he could turn ice into water and water into steam, the latter meaning that the water’s temperature would rise to one hundred degrees Celsius.

  The high-temperature steam that Mikawa had created spread about eighteen meters in front of him.

  Of course, the heat was immediately sapped away by the surrounding air, and the water vapor resolidified slightly, turning into a thick fog. But Divider, in the middle of his high-speed dash, would still have been surrounded by one hundred–degree steam for several seconds, most likely breathing it into his lungs as well. No matter how good he was at cutting things up, he couldn’t cut vapor.

  Mikawa hesitated, wondering whether he should close the gap between them and finish him off instead of waiting. After all, he had been forced to reveal the ability he’d successfully kept a secret from enemies and allies alike until now. At the very least, that should earn him the right to his bitter enemy’s life.

  But Mikawa’s mind was quickly made up for him when another bullet flew at him from the southern side of the cemetery. It was probably only thanks to the visibility-obscuring fog around them that the shot narrowly missed his left arm and hit the flagstones. Looking at the bullet, Mikawa hunched down and aimed another wide breath behind him, creating more thick fog that covered the entire center of the cemetery.

  I suppose this is my chance.

  Shaking off a bit of lingering regret, Mikawa began to run toward the west side of the cemetery. Since he had only frozen up the wound on his abdomen as a styptic, if the ice melted, he would probably start to bleed profusely again. He had to get to the Syndicate safe house as quickly as possible and have the wound treated or even his Third Eye–enhanced stamina wouldn’t be able to save him.

  “Well, I guess we’ll have to call this a draw for now, Divider,” he grunted, pressing his left hand against his wound as he ran. Trying to ignore the pain, he forced a smile to his lips.

  From increasingly far away, he heard Divider yell after him, his voice raw, “Hey! You’re just gonna run away, Trancer? Get back here and fight me!”

  The shout echoed through the graveyard, making the fog quiver. But of course, Mikawa kept running west, creating more fog to cover him as he went. Is he able to yell like that even after cooking his lungs with hot steam because of his stamina as a soldier? Or is it because he just has that much inner rage…? Through his huffing and puffing, Mikawa managed a weak chuckle.

  “Don’t be so ill-tempered, Divider. We’re taking very good care of your beloved princess…”

  How on earth did the SFD get her a driver’s license?

  This was Minoru’s second thought as he looked at Suu Komura, code name Refractor, for the first time with her ability deactivated.

  After all, now that he saw her, there was no way this woman—no, this girl—was older than him. In fact, she looked no older than a middle schooler.

  Suu was barely 150 centimeters tall, with fluffy, tawny-brown hair cut just above her shoulders. Her porcelain skin was paler than the average Japanese person, and her face could easily be called otherworldly.

  Minoru caught himself thinking that someone so lovely couldn’t possibly exist in the real world.

  Her facial features were small and delicate like a doll’s, the bridge of her nose straight, her lips a captivating cherry blossom pink. Her irises were a mysterious color, a deep violet blue he had never seen before, even in photos or movies.

  They’re like the sky at dawn…

  …Minoru thought, gazing dazedly into her amethyst eyes.

  For just a moment, Suu Komura returned his gaze rather nervously, but she quickly looked away and spoke in the same flat tone as ever.

  “…I’m very hungry.”

  After another short moment of absentmindedness, Minoru abruptly came back to his senses.

  “Ah, I’m sorry…! Okay, um, let’s go, then! M-my house is right over there.”

  “I know.”

  Refractor removed the key from the ignition with a practiced motion and got out through the car’s right-hand door. Minoru clambered out on that side, too, smacking his head again in the process. He opened his umbrella, and after locking her car, Suu joined him underneath as if it was the most natural thing in the world.

  How am I going to explain this to Norie?

  In fact, shouldn’t I have thought a bit more about the implications of inviting a girl over for dinner?

  As all this occurred to him far too late, Minoru paced awkwardly over the last thirty or so meters to his home with Suu in tow.

  “So, ummm… This is my friend Suu. I ran into her on my way home, so I may have sort of invited her over for dinner… I hope that’s all right…?”

  Upon hearing Minoru’s slightly clumsy explanation, Norie froze in the middle of stirring the sushi rice with a wooden spoon, blinking at him in astonishment. Then her face suddenly broke into a joyous smile the likes of whi
ch he had hardly ever seen, like a sunflower in bloom, and it was his turn to stare at her with surprise.

  I know it’s pretty rare for me to bring a girl home, but still, you don’t need to look that surprised…

  But as he thought about it, Minoru realized it was more than just rare—

  It was the first time ever. In the eight years since he’d moved in, Minoru had not brought a single friend home. As it dawned on him, he was surprised to find that he, too, was a little shaken.

  I, of all people, brought a girl home right after meeting her, without one thought of the consequences? Even though such a singular event is guaranteed to be etched into my brain as an unforgettable memory? Did it not occur to me that later I might regret this, stress out about it, and end up writhing around, agonizing over it for all eternity?

  What have I done?

  As Minoru stood frozen in complete shock, Norie, still positively sparkling with glee, gripped the wooden spoon with both hands. “Well!” she said loudly. “Well, now… My little Mii’s brought a friend home!”

  Oh god, please stop calling me that! Minoru inwardly screamed, but before he could make a sound, Refractor stepped forward. Her hands placed neatly above her knees (on the leggings under her white dress), she bowed deeply.

  “Good evening, ma’am. My name is Suu Komura.” Her voice was as quiet as ever and even more polite than usual. “I hope my unexpected visit isn’t too much of a bother. Are you quite sure you don’t mind?”

  Norie shook her head so quickly, her short bobbed hair flew back and forth. “Oh my goodness, of course not! Welcome, Miss Komura, welcome! I’m sorry—I was just a little surprised. My little Mii’s never invited a friend over…never mind a lovely young lady like yourself…!”

  Hearing Norie blurt out these far-too-honest words, seeing her eyes brim with genuine tears of joy…the frozen Minoru mentally sank through the floor. I felt bad that she was watching the house all day in the rain to protect it from a Ruby Eye attack, so I just invited her in! Without thinking! But he couldn’t say that, of course. To start with, he couldn’t even tell Norie about Ruby Eyes and such.